Man beaten to death, at least 8 shot in overnight violence

In overnight violence in Chicago, a man was found beaetn to death Saturday morning in Washington Park and at least eight people were shot since late Friday night, including two men wounded inside Wicker Park, authorities said.

About 7:05 a.m. Saturday, police responded to a call of a man down in the 5100 block of Ellsworth Drive and found a man in his 20s lying on the grass in the park, according to Chicago Police Department News Affairs Officer Michael Sullivan. Accroding to initial police reports, the man had been shot in the back of the head, but an autopsy revealed that he had been beaten to death.

"There were no witnesses,'' Sullivan said.

The still unidentified man was pronounced dead at 7:45 a.m. at University of Chicago Hospitals, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

Sullivan said no arrests have been made.

About 11:23 p.m. Friday night during an argument in Wicker Park in the 1400 block of N. Damen Avenue, a 35-year-old man was shot in the abdomen and taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in critical condition and a 25-year-old was taken to John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County.

Police said both men had documented gang affiliations and long criminal histories.

About 4:02 a.m., a man was shot in the mouth and is in critical condition at Mount Sinai Hospital. Someone shot him near Garfield Boulevard and Western Avenue in the Back of the Yards neighborhood, police said.

About an hour earlier, an 18-year-old man leaning out the back window of a car shouting gang slogans toward a group was shot by someone in the group. Police said the man was hit in the back and arm and is in critical condition at Mount Sinai Hospital. The shooting happened near 26th Street and Lawndale Avenue in Little Village.

About 2:20 a.m., someone shot a 22-year-old man in the chest and buttocks. The shooter was refused entry to a house party in the 7800 block of South South Shore Drive in the South Shore neighborhood. After being told he couldn't come in, he fired into the house, hitting the 22-year-old.

Someone shot a 63-year-old man about 1:50 a.m. near the United Center on the Near West Side. The man was wounded in the 2100 block of West Van Buren Street and taken to Stroger hospital. He's being held on suspicion of unlawful use of a weapon because police found a gun in his SUV, which was found on Western Avenue. It's not clear what exactly happened, though detectives are investigating the incident.

Just before midnight, an 18-year-old woman was shot in the 3000 block of South Tripp Avenue in Little Village. She was in a car with two women and two men, and the group drove the wounded woman to Loretto Hospital in the Austin neighborhood on the West Side. The two men disappeared by the time police arrived, though. Someone on the street fired toward the car after throwing other items toward the car, police said.

After 10 people were shot — seven of them in one incident — overnight in Baltimore following the city's most violent month in decades, police announced Sunday that 10 federal agents will embed with the city's homicide unit for the next two months.